


Until Next Time

by Arsoemon



Series: ShuKita 100 [23]
Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Grim Reapers, Near Death, Not Really Character Death, Shukita - Freeform, it’s hard to explain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsoemon/pseuds/Arsoemon
Summary: Grim Reaper Akira makes a new friend
Relationships: Kitagawa Yusuke & Kurusu Akira, Kitagawa Yusuke/Kurusu Akira, Kitagawa Yusuke/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: ShuKita 100 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1485896
Comments: 2
Kudos: 27





	Until Next Time

The little spirit clings tightly to the reaper's skirts as they watch the human woman cease to move. "Down to the second...." the reaper makes a note in the book before lifting a hand, beckoning the woman's newly freed spirit away from her body.

She appears next to them, a gentle glow softening her edges. It doesn’t take long for her to realize what this means. "What of my son?" The woman frantically inquires.

“He will live a while longer. It is time for you to go.” The little spirit releases the reaper's skirt, slipping away as the woman continues to plead. The little spirit finds an equally little boy asleep in the next room, and after some time, the small boy stirs from his slumber.

"Ah, hello." He rubs his eyes as he greets the little spirit.

"You can see me?" The little spirit asks, wide-eyed.

"Mhm. I'm Yusuke. What’s your name?"

"My name...?" He isn't sure how to respond.

"What do your family call you?"

"Family.... um... Sensei calls me kokage, but I don't think it's really a name."

"Well, what do you want to be called?"

"What would you call me?"

Yusuke thinks on this. "I think... Akira." He smiles at his new friend, and the little spirit—Akira—smiles back. Just then, there's a cry out in the hall, someone yelling for help. Yusuke scrambles to the door to see what's going on as Akira glides slowly behind him. "Sensei...?"

"Yusuke! Don't look!" The man pushes him back into his room as he scrambles to call an ambulance. Yusuke hurries to the room the man just left, his mother's room. He stops in the doorway.

•••

“Wanna see something cool?” Akira crouches on Yusuke’s window sill. Years have passed since their first meeting, though they never lost touch. Yusuke has been plagued by illness, and Akira seems to always just so happen to be free on the boy’s worst nights. And this one is no different. He’d been complaining of a cough and a heavy feeling in his lungs.

Akira checks his list obsessively, always afraid that the boy’s name is on it. Even now as he awaits the boy’s response, he’s mentally cycling through it. The boy gives a weak nod. “Hands in your pockets.” He gives the same instructions every time, but he can’t be too careful with this. Yusuke complies, and Akira lifts him under his arms.

“Where are we going?”

“You said you like stars, didn’t you?” Akira laughs lightly.

They land in a clearing on a mountain top. The trees tower toward the heavens and make the space feel safe and cozy. The grass is blanket soft and gently swaying in the light, cool breeze. They spot a fox trotting calmly toward the trees, and Yusuke’s heart leaps a little. He gasps, and a smile lights up his still pallid face. Akira smirks, a bit proud of his decision to bring him out tonight. He lightly nudges him with his shoulder and looks to the sky. Yusuke follows his gaze, and his eyes brighten enough to rival this view.

“I-is this heaven?” Yusuke whispers. Akira continues to smile at him and falls backward onto the soft ground. Yusuke follows suit, and they lie in the grass and watch the perfectly clear night sky in a silence broken only by the soothing white noise of the forest.

Eventually, Yusuke drifts off to sleep, his breathing deeper and clearer and steadier than before. Akira carefully lifts him again and carries him back home.

•••

The reaper is laughing. The sound is out of place here in this realm beyond time or joy, and yet here it is. Akira can hear the echo over the mountain-like formation. As the laughter subsides, he could swear he hears a voice whispering as the wind hits his face. It lasts for mere seconds, but it's hard enough to blow his hood off. He shakes the small specks of dust out before continuing his journey to The Council.

He stands at the bottom of the stairs to the stage-like formation, counting and recounting the pillars and bowls and vases and thrones to pass the time. A horn like a lone wolf sounds, and he takes a knee, bowing his head low as The Council takes the stage.

_We, The High Seven, welcome you to this gathering place. The Council will commence._ They all strike the ground with the bottoms of their scythes and staffs in perfect unison. _Kokage, you have been summoned before The Council in regards to your fraternization with one Kitagawa Yusuke. The rules state clearly the appropriate proximities to human passengers. You will do well to recall them. With regard to this particular human, this Council serves as your first and final warning. Dismissed._

•••

In the time since he was summoned before that infernal collection of sentient robes, Akira has continued to visit Yusuke while he was sick, though he no longer takes him away. They’ve both grown into fine young men and close friends. Akira has still been constantly checking his list for Yusuke’s name and, thankfully, coming up empty each time. That still didn’t make watching the crash any easier, though.

He’d had to collect the conductor first. Heart disease. Fifteen of the innocents on the platform. Pure misfortune. Nine passengers on the ill-fated train car. Various injuries. And it was while he gathered these last nine that he saw Yusuke unconscious and bleeding on the broken window, a tangle of other passengers on top of him. This was only the fourth time he’s felt sick on a collection.

He did his best to gather himself and ferry the 25 souls to their proper places with the level of caring professionalism he’s come to be known for in the realms beyond time. Once everyone had been delivered to their next stops, he made a beeline for Yusuke’s hospital room where he kept vigil, checking his list endlessly until the young man woke up. Akira’s mental cycling halted, and his nonexistent breath caught in his chest.

Yusuke takes a while to get his bearings. The nurse comes in to take his vitals, the doctor not far behind. They explain the situation to him—train crash... lucky survivor... nerve damage... some paralysis... vision could deteriorate... lucky....” Akira tunes out the doctor’s attempt to break the news as gently as she knows how and simply watches Yusuke, his face conveying no emotion but more than enough to make Akira worry. They leave him to rest.

As if he senses the reaper’s presence, he calls for him and pushes himself into a sitting position. Akira steps down from the window sill and stands next to him on the side of his bandage-free eye. He takes in Akira’s solemn demeanor. “My turn at last?”

“No. But a goodbye all the same.” Yusuke has heard how strict Akira’s rulers are. He’d told him of what was supposed to be his “first and final warning” years ago, but Akira knows the rules well enough to work around them. Or he had before the new Eldest had ascended. Before either even knows what to say, Yusuke reaches for him. "No, don't!" Akira backs away. "If you touch me, you can never return to your body."

Yusuke looks undeterred. "And...?"

"Yusuke, you would die."

"I understand that."

Akira is stunned. "No. You have too much left to do here. You can't."

"So I'm to go on and live and age without you?"

"I sincerely hope so."

"Akira..." he looks wounded.

"It's bad enough you've seen me so often as it is."

He gently tugs at the blanket on his lap. "Can't another reaper come, since I'm such a bother?"

"It's not like that." Akira steps forward again, fighting the urge to hold his dear friend's hands. "I just mean you shouldn't be so familiar with death. You shouldn't know me by face or name at all, let alone so early and for so long.... If you leave before your time, you'll end up like me, and I don't want that. There's nothing here."

"There is you."

Akira stares into the man’s eyes for a long while, speechless until he extinguishes the small flicker of hope in his chest with a shake of his head. "That's... I'm not enough. If you die naturally, there are countless places you could go. I may even be the one to take you. But if you stay with me, you'll never have a chance at paradise. There is no future beyond the next name on the list."

Yusuke seems to consider this for a moment. "Akira, do you like me?" He turns to him and watches him blush and stumble over his words before they can even form.

"I-I mean yes... like I'm happy when I see you and when you can see me and I-I-I like spending time with you and like knowing you wanna talk to me and...."

"So you have feelings." He saves him from his own embarrassment. Akira simply nods, grateful that he could glean anything useful from whatever that just was but also a little off-put by the question. "What happened to your predecessor?"

Akira's mind reels at what seems like another random question. "They.... they forgot me all those years ago."

"And then?"

"And... I looked for them for years, and five human years ago, they vanished."

"Do you know to where?"

"No. I don't think anyone does."

"So there's no guarantee you can't go elsewhere once your own time is up."

"But it's always been said that we just..." he makes a gesture with his hands simulating a puff of smoke. "...cease to exist."

"Then, hypothetically of course, we would spend however much of eternity we are given together, and then...." Yusuke mimics the gesture. Akira stands next to the bed in silence for a time.

"What about everything you're leaving?"

"Even before the accident, I'd been too tired to paint as of late."

"And your friends?"

He laughs softly. "Surely you don't mean the postman or perhaps the nurse?"

"A lot can happen in a short amount of time. A lot will happen between now and your death. Don't you wanna see it?"

He shakes his head, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Not particularly. It is short-sighted, I know, but all I can imagine is never being able to walk again, never having my full sight again, having to re-learn how to wield my brush just to get a smooth line. I've done a few things I'm proud of and even fewer I regret. The ultimate victory is to get out before that is no longer true, is it not? Our tragedies center on unmet goals and fall from grace, after all."

Akira takes all of this in, each word heavier than the last. Having realized that there's nothing he can say to change the man’s mind, he resigns himself to the silence. Yusuke's feet thud uselessly on the floor as he throws back the blanket. He stumbles forward, much more of a slow fall than a stride. Akira steps forward to catch him, a lone tear escaping as he kneels next to the limp form of his friend lying on the floor, a serene expression on his face. The heart monitor continues to beep rhythmically. Akira carefully returns the form to the bed, arranging it to look as if he were simply asleep, though Akira knows he's not. He looks at the clock. Seven minutes. He solemnly leans against his scythe as the minutes tick away at an agonizing pace. Four minutes. He straightens his gloves and is about to raise his hood when-

"Is that me?" Akira turns to the foot of the bed before looking back at the clock. There are still three minutes left, but the moment he'd reached for Yusuke, he figured this particular collection would be outside the norm.

"It was," he looks back to the corporeal form of his friend. He watches him watch his still-breathing body, solemn curiosity on his face. "Do you want to leave before...?" he asks softly. Yusuke looks unsure. "We don't have to. Just... let me know when you're ready." Akira stands on the window sill, still watching spectral Yusuke come to terms with what he'd just done. The relative silence is broken by the single continuous tone of the heart monitor, a flat line on the screen. Less than a minute later, a team of medical staff rushes in, flinging covers and clothing away and doing everything they can to try to revive him. He grabs his chest as he feels the tug of his body calling for the spirit, but he stays put.

"Ah... I think I'm ready now," he looks to Akira with solemn eyes. Akira extends a hand, and after offering a sad smile, he begins the walk into the void.

•••

Almost immediately, he is summoned to The Council.

_Kokage, you have been warned countless times. There are and always have been strict rules regarding our passengers. Do not misstep here._

Akira, still kneeling before the seven figures, begins to weep silently as he slowly rises to his feet. He turns to Yusuke. The boy looks concerned at his expression, but as understanding washes over him, he steels himself.

"Yusuke...." a broken whisper.

"I must go, yes? It is alright. I would much rather it be you." He extends a hand to the reaper he himself had named. Akira pulls him close and holds him tightly as the last bit of instinct in Yusuke's soul fights its destruction. The deed done, Akira crumples to the ground, the sorrow far too heavy for him to bear any longer. Eventually, the echoes of his weeping subside.

_Rise, kokage. There is more work to be done._ But he doesn't. The central figure glides closer to Akira's hunched form and reaches to pull him up. As his cloak rises in the elder reaper's grasp, it releases a shapeless mass of dark, glimmering dust that scatters to the winds of the earth.

Somewhere in Japan, a man feels the overwhelming urge to smile, though he has absolutely no idea why. "Would you be willing to take in such a troublesome kid, Sakura-San? His folks said they'd pay you well."

**Author's Note:**

> This was a wild dream I had to get typed and posted before it drove me crazy. I know there are a lot of things to fill in with this one, and I have answers for at least some of those things, if anyone wants to know badly enough, but I think it’s fun to let you guys add your own details, too. Thank you for reading!


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